Star Mist Read online

  Angie and the rest of the new chairmen just sat silently.

  A few moments later, Tacita sat up straight and took a deep breath. Then she said, “I have no doubt that you will find that attacking ship to be of human origin.”

  Angie kind of had a hunch that was where all of this was heading, but it still surprised her.

  “Why would humans wipe out an entire galaxy full of sentient creatures?”

  Tacita opened her mouth to say something, but Ray touched her arm and she just shook her head and closed her mouth.

  “We’re out here risking our necks,” Benny said. “And the lives of millions of others. I think we deserve to know what you were about to say.”

  “They believe they can kill these creatures because they created them,” Ray said.

  Tacita nodded. “I was not going to put it that nicely.”

  Angie just sort of stared at both of them. “They create an entire race of intelligent creatures and then destroy them. Why?”

  “Why in the early days of all human civilizations do humans use animals to experiment on and then put them down?” Ray asked, anger clearly not far below the surface.

  “But this was a galaxy-wide civilization,” Carrie said.

  “Just a different scale of experiment,” Tacita said, almost spitting her words.

  Angie felt sick to her stomach. She didn’t want to believe that civilized humans were capable of such things. This went against everything the Seeders knew and believed.

  “This is disgusting,” Benny said.

  “They think we are just as disgusting,” Ray said.

  Angie finally couldn’t take it any longer. “Are we going to get to know what happened all those millions of years ago and how you know all this?”

  “And why we didn’t learn it with the basic briefings?” Gage said.

  “We didn’t include it because we didn’t think it was possible,” Tacita said.

  “And it happened almost a half million years after the origin of the original galaxy,” Ray said, “after we were already Seeding and expanding outward though many galaxies.”

  “What was possible?” Carrie asked a moment before Angie could.

  “We never thought it possible that a fleet of ships could survive over a million year trip through space,” Ray said.

  Angie looked at the shining ship on the screen, floating dead in space. Clearly they had survived just fine.

  THIRTY

  GAGE WAS FEELING more annoyed than anything else.

  He and Angie and over a million people on this ship had all come out here to risk their lives trying to find out about another galaxy-spanning race and suddenly they learn about some fight between human factions millions of years ago.

  Not happy was the least of how he was feeling right now.

  And Gage could tell that Benny and Gina and the others were also slowly building to anger.

  Gage had a hunch you did not want to see the six of them really mad at anything.

  The room was deathly silent and the star field hung high over the table like a bad cloud.

  “I would say,” Benny said, “that you owe us a story and a real explanation of what the hell is going on.”

  “Agreed,” Matt said.

  Gage just nodded, almost afraid to say anything.

  Ray and Tacita both nodded.

  Gage was sure they could feel the anger building as well. None of the six of them were covering it very well.

  And beside Gage, he could feel Angie almost vibrating.

  “I can assure you,” Ray said, “that it did not dawn on us in any fashion that this alien race might be human created until just now. And we may still be wrong about that conclusion.”

  “We are not,” Tacita said.

  Benny held up his hand and stopped them both. “The beginning. Start at the damn beginning, would you?”

  Ray nodded, took a deep breath and started into the story. “About a half million years after we first launched our ship to start Seeding other galaxies, we found a new alien race.”

  “The ants?” Gina asked.

  Gage remembered that from their training.

  “The ants,” Ray said, nodding.

  “We chose at that point to develop the policy,” Tacita said, “of leaving alien races alone completely, letting them develop or not develop at their own pace.”

  “But that policy was very, very controversial,” Ray said, “because without intervention and help from Seeders, no human-seeded planet would survive through the many steps that destroy a civilization. We learned that with hard lessons.”

  Gage nodded to that. He knew from the training that the fact that humans survived at all was by sheer luck through numbers of major periods and setbacks along the way. Most alien civilizations the Seeders had found had not.

  “So intervention is a way of life for Seeders and we are proud of the work we do,” Tacita said.

  “But many thought that the same policy should extend to alien races,” Ray said. “Many did not.”

  “Also,” Tacita said, “a very strong faction had always been against the terraforming of planets we did as the first step of Seeding. The faction argued that by smashing an asteroid into a planet to clear it off before Seeding new plants and animals, we were possibly destroying an alien life form that might evolve into an intelligent species in a million years or more.”

  “By simply settling on a planet, they also argued,” Ray said, “even without the terraforming, human settlements and civilization on a planet would stunt and destroy any alien life chance at evolving.”

  Gage could see both points.

  “But the data of observations of billions of planets inside the life zone of yellow stars showed that was not going to be the case,” Tacita said.

  “In fact,” Ray said, “before even the first attempt at terraforming happened, the studies had covered just under nine billion earth-like planets in many galaxies, many of the planets very, very old in their life cycles. No higher level life had evolved or emerged.”

  “We find evolved life now on about one planet in sixty galaxies,” Tacita said. “Do the math on that. And none of the alien civilizations we have found evolved to a civilization that could span outside their own galaxy. And only two spread into their own galaxy at all before destroying themselves.”

  “So there was a division in ideas,” Benny said.

  Gage was glad Benny was trying to keep this on track.

  “A very strong one,” Ray said, nodding. “The other side believed in two things we Seeders do not believe in. They believed in helping an alien race evolve when found and they also believed even more in the genetic building of an alien race from life forms found on a planet.”

  “Seriously?” Gina asked.

  “Holy shit,” Benny said.

  Ray nodded and went on. “They experimented in a galaxy far too close to the home galaxy. They built a race that eventually tried to take them over.”

  “The fight was short and very quick,” Tacita said.

  Ray nodded again. “Seeder military ships came in and saved the remains of the human population in the galaxy from the race they had created.”

  “Let me guess,” Benny said, “you destroyed the experiment.”

  “We did,” Ray said, nodding. “We had no choice, for our own safety. The race they had created was a very aggressive conquering-type race that did not believe in letting any other race live, including those who created them.”

  “Seeders outlawed any form of that kind of experimenting into the future,” Tacita said. “It’s why Seeders have a firm policy of going around any galaxy with alien life and standing off and just watching and not interfering.”

  “And why we are out here now,” Carrie said, “to learn and watch and make sure this race is not a threat to our Seeded galaxies.”

  “Exactly,” Ray said.

  “So what happened next was that even though mostly destroyed, those who believed in helping alien races evolve were still
vocal,” Tacita said.

  “So we helped them build a massive mother ship called New Life with hundreds of smaller ships on board,” Ray said.

  Gage was shocked. “You helped them?”

  Ray nodded, his eyes down.

  “The agreement was that the crew, just under a half-million people who wanted to take the journey, went into stasis for one million years,” Tacita said. “And after that they agreed they would continue on to get as far away from human galaxies as they could as they searched for alien races to help.”

  “And to build their own?” Carrie asked softly.

  “I’m afraid so,” Tacita said.

  “Star Mist,” Ray said, “Using the same star field floating above us, would you please show from the historical records the direction the New Life took when it left the original galaxy.”

  Gage watched as on the star field hologram a red line appeared. It was not on the track of the line directly from this galaxy back to the original human galaxy. In fact, it went off almost thirty degrees to one side and ten degrees higher.

  “Could you show the end of the line where the crew would have come out of stasis after one million years?” Tacita asked.

  The line shortened slightly.

  “Draw a line from that point to this galaxy please, Star Mist,” Ray said.

  A blue line appeared.

  “How long at full standard trans-tunnel drive would it have taken New Life to make that journey?”

  “One million, two-hundred-thousand years,” Star Mist said.

  Gage did the quick math for himself. One million years in stasis, one-point-two in travel meant there was well over a million years missing. Damn.

  “So they have been exploring along that route for just over a million years,” Ray said.

  Gage could finally see why this had caught Ray and Tacita by surprise.

  “That makes sense now,” Benny said, nodding.

  He was clearly not as angry as he had been and Gage could feel his anger draining away.

  Much better, because now they all had to face the question of what to do next.

  SECTION FOUR

  The Growing Problem

  THIRTY-ONE

  ANGIE HAD BEEN so angry that through all of Ray and Tacita’s explanation, she had been afraid to say anything or ask a question. She couldn’t trust herself to be civil.

  But when the original path of the New Life was shown, it cleared up to her why Ray and Tacita would not have even thought to mention that part of Seeder history.

  Neither of them thought it would apply to this situation.

  But now what?

  The eight in the conference room were sitting, all thinking, when Angie got a signal from Soma, their second in command. He knew they were not to be disturbed unless urgent, so she clicked it and said, “Yes, Soma. All the chairmen can hear you.”

  “The scout ships have reached the next galaxy in our original path,” Soma said. “The galaxy has been destroyed as well in the same fashion, about six months ahead of this one.”

  “No signs of life at all?” Angie asked, her stomach twisting.

  “None,” Soma said.

  “Hold a moment,” Angie said.

  Angie glanced at Gage and then around at the other four chairmen. “I suggest we send the scout ships farther ahead along our intended course.”

  All five of the other chairmen nodded. Angie did not give Ray and Tacita a vote.

  “Soma,” Angie said, “please tell the scout and military ships to move on to the next galaxy at top speed.”

  “I will do so,” Soma said.

  He clicked off and Angie looked at the others around the conference table. “Seems our distant cousins,” she said, “are not only wiping out a civilization that fills an entire galaxy, but one that fills many galaxies.”

  “We need a lot more information as to what is happening here,” Gina said.

  “Angie agreed. “For example, how long did it take this race to cover this entire galaxy?”

  Gage leaned forward. “Has any information been withheld from us about the ship that started all this and what we learned about this race from that ship?”

  “I do not think so,” Tacita said, shaking her head.

  “They are a race that breeds quickly, is very aggressive, and has little if any arts or music or writing,” Ray said.

  “Their function was to breed and expand,” Tacita said, “which was why they kept adding onto their ship until it finally could not handle any more and failed them.”

  “They knew that would be the outcome, but they could not stop breeding and adding on new shelter on the ship,” Ray said.

  Angie shook her head at that. That was deep breeding. They might have survived if they could have controlled that.

  “And you saw no evidence of human tampering at all in their records?” Carrie asked.

  “Nothing,” Tacita said.

  “Nothing,” Ray said. “But now that we are facing this, we will have the scientists go back and look at everything again with that in mind.”

  Silence, hard, nasty and uncomfortable silence.

  Finally it was Benny who got to the heart of what they were all thinking.

  “So do we interfere and stop them or do we stand off and watch?” Benny asked.

  Once again there was silence that just seemed to cut at Angie.

  “We do not have enough information to act in either direction,” Gina said.

  Angie nodded to that, as did Gage.

  “So we send our scouts and military as planned to find the fleet,” Benny said. “Shielded so they cannot be seen.”

  The other five chairmen nodded.

  Again none of them looked at Ray and Tacita.

  “And we drag every bit of information and history out of their wrecked ship,” Matt said.

  Again all of them nodded.

  “And we find out if they really did create this alien race and how fast they spread,” Gage said.

  Again, the other five chairmen nodded.

  Angie then turned to look directly at Ray and Tacita. “It would be our honor to have you stay aboard and observe and help us with historical questions. If you would?”

  Both Ray and Tacita nodded.

  “If you would allow us,” Ray said, “we would be glad to put together a historical lesson of the time we described. It would only take a few minutes for each of you to be up to speed on everything about this branch of humanity.”

  Everyone nodded.

  “Thank you,” Gage said. “That would be very helpful.”

  Benny stood. “Let’s go find some answers.”

  With that, he and Gina vanished.

  A moment later with a nod to Ray and Tacita, Carrie and Matt also vanished.

  Ray looked at Angie and Gage. “We are sorry this possibility did not get discussed and shared.”

  “We understand,” Gage said.

  “Yes, we do,” Angie said. “But realize you put the six of us in charge of the well-being of millions of people on these ships. We take that responsibility very seriously. That is why we were all so angry at not being completely informed as to what we might be going into.”

  “We understand,” Tacita said.

  “Good,” Gage said. “So please, in prepping this new historical data, don’t leave off any part of humanity that splintered off, or any major lost ships, or anything that might be what is going on here, if that really is a human fleet.”

  “Let all of us be the judge of what might be important or not,” Angie said. “It might be the difference between saving millions or not.”

  Ray and Tacita nodded and with that Angie and Gage jumped back to their command center.

  And for Angie, it felt good to be away from Ray and Tacita. She was still that angry.

  THIRTY-TWO

  GAGE AND ANGIE spent two hours going over every bit of information coming in, then took a break for a quick bite of lunch, then right back to the command center.

  Gage cou
ldn’t remember a time before where he had been so focused on one task.

  It was at just under three hours after the meeting with Ray and Tacita that the first information started to flow in about the fleet ship.

  It was a human ship.

  Gage shook his head. Well, that settled that much, but was there another part of humanity that might be out here instead of the ones Ray and Tacita thought were here? That was still to be determined.

  The human ship hadn’t been attacked, but had engine failure and all occupants had been saved to other ships. The ship was left clearly to be salvaged later.

  All systems were still up and running, but no crew were left on board.

  The ship had no real weapons compared to the military ships on board Star Mist. And the ship only had standard trans-tunnel drives that looked very outdated.

  The six chairmen were linked by their ships and had a discussion on what to do next.

  “We need the data and historical information from that ship’s computer,” Carrie said.

  Gage agreed as did everyone.

  “But we can’t leave a trace that we were there just in case we decide to stay out of this mess,” Gina said.

  “Damn straight,” Benny said.

  Gage agreed with that, so while they were still linked, they talked to Chairman LeAnne about the possibility of downloading that ship’s basic computer on board the ship and not leaving a trace.

  “Easily,” she said. “We can set up a perimeter to give us warning if one of their ships are headed back and we can have all that data from that main computer system in less than an hour.”

  “Keep it isolated from your main computers,” Angie said. “Extreme isolation. No telling what traps are on there.”

  “Understood,” Chairman LeAnne said and clicked off.

  At that moment Chairman Ray contacted them all. “We may have come up with yet another possibility for that fleet being human. And we have the historical data ready to let you all have it quickly.”

  “We take in the history first,” Gage said. “Then we will better understand this new possibility.”